Elon Musk bids goodbye to White House, says DOGE will strengthen with time

Amid reports of his differences with Donald Trump's policies, Musk posted on X: "As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump  for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending. The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government."

According to media reports, the White House started "offboarding" Musk as a special government employee.

According to CNN quoting a White House official, Musk will begin the offboarding process on Wednesday night, which essentially includes paper work.

Donald Trump with Elon Musk at the White House earlier this year. Photo: X/The White House

Of late Musk had devoted less time on government work and went back to focusing on his companies, including SpaceX and Tesla, which suffered from Musk’s allegiance to the Trump administration.

Earlier, in an interview to CBS, Elon Musk said he was "disappointed" with US President Donald Trump's bill that pushes for a massive spending package, including multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks, stating that doing so will only "increase the budget deficit".

Speaking to CBS, Musk, once an avid supporter of Trump's policies, described it as a “massive spending bill” that increases the federal deficit and “undermines the work” of the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.

"I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing," Musk, who recently stepped back from running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), said.

“I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful. But I don’t know if it could be both,” he said.

Musk's interview with CBS came out Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump defended his agenda by talking about the delicate politics involved with negotiating the legislation.

“I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it," he said.

The Tesla CEO was referring to the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that would fulfill Trump's vision for a new "Golden Age", led by efforts to shrink social safety net programmes to pay for a 10-year extension of his 2017 tax cuts.

The legislation also seeks to ramp up spending on border security, enforce Medicaid work requirements, and roll back clean energy tax credits.

The bill was passed by the House of Representatives last week and will now move to the Senate.